The Lady Of Shalott
by confusingtimelessnessandtime
Summary: "The isle of Shalott was only a short distance from Camelot, and no one in the city had any true idea of what lay inside. The only thing that everybody agreed on was that the tower, surrounded by four grey walls, was deserted but for a hauntingly beautiful, spectral maiden who had only been seen through the mirror hanging in her bower." / The story of the Lady of Shalott.


**If anyone wants to know what I've been imagining for the Lady of Shalott in this, look up the painting The Lady Of Shalott by John William Waterhouse. The roses she smells like and the one in the stained glass window are Lady of Shalott roses, not just any roses. I haven't made a study in rose scents so I don't actually know how their fragrance differs from other roses, but I feel the distinction is important to make.**

 **The line "I will not desire that" is from the Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing, and the dialogue "I see the thing I cannot have and will never know." / "You may know love one day" is heavily inspired by the dialogue from Much Ado About Nothing, "I do love nothing in the world as well as you. Is not that strange?" / "As strange as the thing I know not".**

 **The entire reason I wrote this is a poem called The Lady Of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson. I like the poem regardless of some questionable actions taken by the Lady of Shalott herself, and I can only hope I've given it something new.**

.

The isle of Shalott was only a short distance from Camelot, and no one in the city had any true idea of what lay inside. The only thing that everybody agreed on was that the tower, surrounded by four grey walls, was deserted but for a hauntingly beautiful, spectral maiden. The maiden was sylphlike, all said, and had only been seen through the mirror hanging in her bower. From there, the tales varied - the ghost of a noblewoman, a sorceress, a grief-stricken widow, a trapped and sorrowful maid - but the consistent theory was that the maiden was long dead.

Lancelot did not have much trouble with the idea. He was not an arrogant man, but he was confident enough in his skills that he felt he could handle a few nights in a tower with a spirit. The tower was a refuge for him, and if this ghostly maiden disliked the idea of having a guest for a few nights, then he would find sanctuary elsewhere.

He gazed up at the tower, hoping he wouldn't have to go anywhere else that night. The rain was slanted by the wind, and the sky was a starless black that made him shudder to look upwards. He could barely remember the route he had travelled to get here, so focused he had been on reaching the tower, and if he had to leave, he wasn't sure that he would be riding away from Camelot.

Lancelot knocked twice on the door, which made a dead sound. He waited a few minutes, pressed to the side of the tower to avoid the wind, the knocked again. When no one answered, he tried to open the door and found that it was not locked.

He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Now that the wind was no longer in his ears or the rain beating on his shoulders, his own breathing and footsteps seemed unnaturally loud. The small room he had just entered looked too much like the dark bottom of a well for him to feel anywhere near comfortable, so he started to climb the stairs.

There were stained-glass windows here and there along the sides of the tower, and Lancelot wished it were lighter outside so that he could see what the images were. They appeared very intricate, though he could not tell much more about their outlines without a torch in his hand. There appeared to be some sort of light from somewhere above him in the tower, and he noted with some unease that it was not the golden glow of a torch. The shadows it cast were still, unmoving, in a direct contrast to the way fire leapt as it burnt.

He climbed still further up the stairs in a spiral, aware of his blood pounding in his ears and the rain beating at the windows. He paid particular attention to the shadows around him so that he would know if he had any others on the stairs along with him, and tried unsuccessfully to breathe quieter. Slowly, he realised that someone was singing.

It was a dissonant melody sung with the voice of a young woman. She sang beautifully, and Lancelot stopped and sat down on the cold stone steps to listen. _"Tirra lirra, tirra lirra,"_ the maiden chanted to herself, her voice faltering, until she burst into tears.

 _"Tirra lirra,"_ she repeated to herself in a sob that echoed down the tower and broke his heart. _"Tirra lirra by the river, tirra lirra."_

Whoever this maiden was, she was lonely and absolutely miserable. Lancelot stood and climbed the rest of the stairs as quickly as he could, seeing but not comprehending the tapestries on the walls and the chambers just beneath the ones the woman was in. There was no door to her chambers, and through the stone archway he saw a maiden bent over a tapestry she had evidently been weaving by hand, weeping.

The bower was surprisingly large. A mirror hung on the stone wall nearest her and the window was an arch that made a dramatic background for her, with white skin and fair hair and a simple green dress, and all this, he could see thanks to the white sphere of light in the middle of the high, vaulted ceiling casting its otherworldly glow.

"Milady," Lancelot murmured from the doorway, causing her to spring to her slippered feet with fright, "may I help?"

Her face was as pale as her slender neck, and there were dark shadows and wet cheeks underneath hostile eyes. "Who are you?"

"I am Lancelot. I mean you no harm, I merely request a bed or part of the floor for a few nights." Some of the tension left her shoulders, though her eyes were still wary. "If you deny my request, I will go."

"I will not force you into a night such as this," she said, shaking her head and looking offended at the implication. "If you are willing to trust a sorceress, then I am willing to trust a man as a guest. There are chambers just beneath mine. I hope you will find them to your liking."

"Thank you, milady," Lancelot said with a small bow, leaving the room.

.

His chambers were lit with the same magical light. He didn't object to this, but Lancelot found it a slightly disturbing prospect that he was banished from Camelot and being housed by a possibly dead possible fugitive, and didn't like to imagine how Arthur would take the news if he were required to tell. Weapons, he had learned long ago, were as evil as their wielders, but he knew that most did not agree.

He took a long look at everything in his chambers. There was a tapestry hanging beside an arched window on the wall, probably woven by the lady herself, depicting the hooves of a white horse alongside a river. A dresser was pressed against the wall beneath a mirror and opposite a large bed. As he had been expecting a pallet at best, he was pleased and surprised. He was even more surprised to discover that there was not a single speck of dust anywhere, as if the chambers had been cleaned in preparation for him.

Lancelot wondered about the maiden. She obviously wasn't in the best of health - no one that pale or thin could call themselves healthy - and the near-bruised shadows under her eyes indicated that she hadn't been sleeping well. She hadn't objected to being addressed as a lady, though that could have been out of surprise or a desire for importance. She was obviously a sorceress powerful enough to conjure and sustain magical light and, with this information, was at least mildly powerful and not one to cross.

"I am sorry for my lack of manners earlier," said a voice behind him, and he turned to find her standing in the arched doorway. "I was rather startled by your sudden entrance."

"I am sorry for my intrusion," he returned, noting the way the light grew brighter the closer she came to it. "I assumed you were in distress. I apologise."

The corners of her mouth lifted in a humourless smile that quickly faded. "I am the Lady of Shalott. You introduced yourself as Lancelot?"

"Yes," he agreed, and because it certainly wasn't something he was hiding, "I hope to be Sir Lancelot one day."

"A knight," she said in surprise, bringing something like life to her expression for the first time. He wondered briefly why knighthood interested her, when all he came across laughed or spat at his goal. "For which kingdom?"

He watched the way the light reflected in her eyes and shadowed parts of her face and wished he could see her in the morning light to truly know what she looked like. "I aspire to one day become a knight of Camelot, when Prince Arthur is king."

"Arthur Pendragon," the Lady murmured, and her lips curved. "The Once and Future King. He will do great things, I think, if destiny is kind."

Lancelot hadn't a hope of understanding what she meant, but he smiled politely. "I think so, milady."

"Kindness is a rare thing, Sir Lancelot," she said quietly, and dropped her gaze to her slim fingers, which were folded neatly in her lap. "I think we both know this already, am I wrong?"

"You are not, milady," he admitted, "but I am not Sir Lancelot yet."

The Lady glanced up again at him, and there was something knowing and amused in her gaze. "No, not yet. I will leave you for the night, Lancelot, and be warned that if you leave these chambers, I will know."

.

It took him a short time to fall asleep, and when he awoke, it was to a full plate of breakfast on the dresser and the dim light of morning. A glance outside his window told him that while the rain had stopped, the clouds still lingered. He looked warily at the breakfast, remembering tales cautioning that none should eat anything off the table of a ghost or fairy, both of which the Lady was rumoured to be.

Lancelot didn't know what to think about the Lady. She was offering him shelter and food, both of which he was grateful for and wary of, and while this seemed kind, her parting words to him had not. He may trust magic, but he did not trust all who wielded it.

"You can eat it," said a voice from behind him, and he turned to find her behind him, clad in grey with delicate white embroidered flowers of the kind that grew just outside Camelot's gates. She stood in the arched entrance, appearing to use it as a dramatic frame in which to watch him. "It's all perfectly safe."

"There are rumours that you are a fairy, milady, and though you are gracious in allowing me to reside here for a short time, I do not wish to stay for longer that a few days."

"I will not desire that," she said, shaking her head but not taking offense. "The food is perfectly safe. I know some of what they say in Camelot, and I assure you that I am of the living."

Lancelot nodded, but made no move to eat the food. He watched her eyes flick towards the dresser and back to him with an almost imperceptible raise of her eyebrows. "I admit that I was wary to enter at first, having heard the rumours about this isle."

Her pale lips smiled humourlessly, and she took a few calculated steps towards the dresser, picking up a piece of coarse bread with all the grace of a fey and eating it deliberately. "It may have been wise of you to heed the warnings of others," she advised him, after she had chewed and swallowed the bread.

"How long have you lived in this tower?" He asked, shifting their conversation to something he hoped would be lighter. She was playing a game that Lancelot refused to join. "It seems a beautiful but lonely place."

"You are not wrong," she murmured, and turned her grey eyes towards the vaulted stone ceiling. "I have lived here far longer than I care to remember, and I shall live here until my death, I fear."

Lancelot gazed at her with curiosity and pity. "Can you not leave?"

"I daren't look down to Camelot," the Lady told him with a peculiar quiver in her clear voice. Her eyes were not tear-filled, but the shadows under them looked darker than ever. "If you will excuse me, Sir Lancelot -"

"Of course," he murmured, and she hurried out.

She left only the scent of roses lingering behind her. Lancelot examined the food on the dresser with less suspicion than he had previously, picked up a piece of fruit, and bit into it.

.

She did not return at lunch. He did not seek her.

.

Near dinnertime, having contemplated his future in silence for hours, he sought the Lady. The light of the setting sun shone through the stained glass windows along the side of the tower, showing detailed images from stories he had heard bastardised versions of on his travels, and he traced his fingers along a few of the lines.

The image outside the Lady's bower portrayed a young woman in a boat floating down a river, with a willow-white dress and peaceful expression. Upon her breast, she held an intricately designed yellow, or perhaps orange rose. Lancelot could not explain why he felt so drawn to the image, but he gazed at it for a time before he approached her bower.

"Milady?" he asked, and when he was not answered, glanced in.

The Lady was weaving again, spinning her web of colours and appearing to be fixed on her work. She was not facing him, and the conjured light shone dully on her fair hair. "Sir Lancelot?"

"I am no knight," he murmured, unwilling to let her believe a lie of nobility. "I would like to dine with you tonight, as I leave on the morrow."

"I am saddened to hear it," she admitted, still weaving steadily. He caught a glimpse of her face, which was blank and without emotion. "I do not often receive company, and I am half-sick of shadows."

Lancelot heard the words for what they were, and he could not deny his own guilt as he replied, "I must help those I can. There are bandits attacking small villages and kings who do nothing while their people starve. If I stay away when I can help, I am no better than those merciless bandits or corrupt kings."

"You are a noble man, Sir Lancelot, and noble men are rare," she noted quietly. He took a few steps into her bower and saw that she was truly looking at the mirror across from her that reflected blue shadows of clouds and, far away, the gates of Camelot.

He remembered her words earlier, and feeling that he was treading on some invisible line, asked, "Why do you not look out your window?"

A long silence of spinning threads followed, until she took her hands from her loom and turned to him at last, the beginnings of tears in her eyes. "I am cursed to stay here forevermore," she said, her voice steady and expressionless, "and if I so much as look out this window, I will die. I can see the city through the mirror and I weave its sights in the hopes that I will one day see them for myself, but I cannot leave."

An image of the position he had first found her in - weeping, hopeless, alone - made its way to the front of his mind. Lancelot's stomach felt as if it had disappeared, leaving a cold hole of horror and pity in its place.

"I do not remember being cursed," she continued, addressing the slim, pale fingers in her lap rather than him. A tear rolled down her nose and left a small wet spot on her grey dress. "I remember sitting by this loom with a whisper in the back of my mind, telling me to weave what I saw in the mirror but not to ever turn around for fear of cursing myself. I see the thing I cannot have and will never know."

"You may know love one day," Lancelot contradicted her gently. "It may not be the love of storybooks, but you will have a chance to love someone."

She raised her head up to meet his gaze, her eyes grey and deep behind the tears. "And who would love me?"

He could not love one he had only known for days, and he would not be so cruel as to pretend to love her and have her wait on his return. He was not sure that she had stopped playing her game simply because she was vulnerable, and his interest in Guinevere in Camelot had not been fleeting.

"Someone equally deserving of your love," he replied, and he thought he saw disappointment in her face as she lowered it again.

"Of course," she murmured softly, rubbing her willowy hands together slowly. "Forgive me, Sir Lancelot, for my ill manners."

"It is forgotten," he promised, and looked on her with eyes that were more sympathetic, but still cautious. "Will you dine with me tonight?"

She gave him a small smile that didn't reach any part of her face beyond the corners of her mouth. "How can I refuse, when I know that I may never do so again?"

.

Dinner was a quiet affair, in which little was spoken.

.

It did not come as a surprise when the Lady joined him at breakfast. She had seemed lost in a haze of misery and veiled questions the night before, but she looked more cheerful than she had since he had seen her.

"What are your travel plans?" she asked him, with something that might have been a smile.

Lancelot sipped his drink before answering, "I cannot return to Camelot, so I will journey to the other kingdoms that make up Albion. Nemeth is friendly to all, though Odin's kingdom and Essetir will require caution and Caerleon is almost entirely uncharted. Essetir is where I plan to start, and from there, I will go anywhere that I feel needs me."

The Lady glanced up at him, down at the sanded table, and up at him again in a way that was almost hesitant. "If you do return to Camelot for your knighthood, I will see your return through the mirror. Will you visit me?"

"The minute I ride within sighting distance of the gates," he vowed solemnly, "though that may be years from now, and I would not have you wait on my return."

"I have little else to do," she said wryly, laying down her fork.

Lancelot watched her stand and move to the dresser with all of her usual grace. The Lady drew out some cloth and, eyes shining gold, traced a line with her finger down the middle. The yellow fabric separated cleanly, and she placed the remaining fabric in the drawer again.

"Tie this around your arm on your return if you intend to visit me again, and I will see it," she instructed him quietly, sadly, laying a long strip of it across his palm. "If this is the last time I will speak to you, I wish you luck and happiness."

"I will not forget my promise," Lancelot vowed, meeting her gaze earnestly.

She smiled, as if she did not believe him. "Fare thee well, Sir Lancelot."

.

In the years that followed his departure from the isle of Shalott, Lancelot travelled and helped wherever he could. The yellow cloth was used as a makeshift bandage for an injured giant by the name of Percival, though the Lady was never completely forgotten. He intended to meet her the next time he returned to Camelot, despite Guinevere and the ruined signal cloth.

All it had taken was a hastily scrawled note from Merlin, servant to Prince Arthur himself, and he and Percival left to aid them immediately. The timing of their arrival had been impeccable, and their victory over the traitorous Lady Morgana hard-won.

As they approached the gates, Lancelot remembered the Lady of Shalott, undoubtedly watching from her bower. There was no cloth around his arm, and he had not acknowledged her in his approach. In truth, he had barely thought of her since the sight of Guinevere and the exhaustion of his fights had driven everything else out of his mind.

"I can't ride through the gates," Lancelot murmured to Merlin, who had been making cheerful conversation that nobody had paid any attention to, himself included. "I have a promise to keep."

"A promise to who?" Merlin responded, blue eyes darting from his right eye to his left. "Can it wait at all? Arthur likely won't be pleased if we don't get back soon. He's planning to hold a feast in honour of your victory."

 _"Your_ victory," he corrected quietly, raising his eyebrows. Merlin's face coloured slightly. He thought of the Lady, high in her tower, waiting for a signal he did not have and filled with mortal dread at the idea of leaving her prison. "It could wait, but I'd rather it didn't. It's been long enough since my last visit to Camelot."

Merlin nodded, although he could have been following the gentle motion of his horse's trot. "I would advise sneaking out of the feast early to go keep this promise of yours. The feasts here are really spectacular maybe once or twice, but after that they're dull as anything, and you've already been to one. With any luck, you'll be a knight staying on to be bored by more feasts."

Lancelot weighed the importance of acknowledging the Lady and staying with Arthur, and before he had fully decided, his horse had taken him through the gates and the people were cheering.

.

Camelot feasts were bright, loud, colourful affairs that Lancelot had never been able to partake in without feeling like an impostor, and this feast was no exception. He might have tried to enjoy himself under different circumstances, but the unrewarded importance of Merlin's victory, the long looks exchanged by Guinevere and Prince Arthur, and his own guilt surrounding the Lady weighed heavily on his mind and conscience.

Lancelot sat and ate food given by a kingdom he did not feel worthy of served by men worthier than him for far longer than he was comfortable, letting Percival tell tales of their travels. He glanced back at Merlin, who moved to fill his goblet.

Shaking his head, Lancelot murmured, "I think I'll take my leave now. I have an oath to keep."

"Of course," Merlin said in the typical deferential response of a servant, then gave him a cheeky smile as he added, _"Sir_ Lancelot."

"How does Sir Merlin sound to you?" He asked, raising his eyebrows at him.

He grinned, a certain mischief in his eyes. "Very cumbersome. I prefer my name without the pretension."

"If you're sure," Lancelot replied, and raised his goblet in a small toast to him.

Merlin's eyes darted from the goblet to his utterly sincere expression as he drank. In apparent embarrassment, he lowered his face into his neckerchief and inquired, "How about this oath, then? Oh, no -"

Lancelot followed Merlin's gaze to the guard, pale and dripping wet, making his way on the outside of the room towards Arthur. A cold breeze swept through the open door, chilling Lancelot through his chainmail and blowing one of the new knight's hair into his face. The knight laughed, shook it back, and raised his eyebrows at Percival's silent amusement.

Merlin laid his pitcher on the table and met the guard halfway through the hall before Lancelot had noticed his departure, and they exchanged a few words behind a pillar. He headed back a few minutes later with an unusual air of solemnity.

"Can you stay a bit longer, or is this oath to be kept now?" He asked quietly, leaning closer. "We may need another pair of eyes outside. There's some sort of disturbance around the river winding into Camelot."

"Of course," he confirmed, half-rising. Noting Percival's eyes on him, he nodded in a reassuring way and moved behind Merlin, who was whispering something in Prince Arthur's ear. From what Lancelot could see of his face, this was not good news.

"Excuse me," he told the congregation of new knights, rising. The knights all stood with him in a loud scraping of chairs. "There's a matter I have to attend to presently. Please, enjoy the feast. You've earned it."

The long-haired knight raised his glass to him with a striking sincerity in his eyes, and a few other knights imitated the movement. As Arthur nodded to him gratefully and left, the noise of all the knights retaking their seats filled the hall and conversation resumed once more. Torchlight cast worried shadows on Prince Arthur's and Merlin's face, the merriment having disappeared from them.

"What matter are we attending to, sire?" Lancelot asked quietly, as they left the warmth and light of the hall at a quick pace. "I gather it has something to do with the river?"

The prince glanced at him with something that might have been surprise. "We've reclaimed a kingdom together, Sir Lancelot. I hardly think you need to call me sire. A body has washed up on the shores, and the guard seemed to think it was so out of the ordinary that someone from the castle had to be involved."

Merlin wiggled his eyebrows at Lancelot, murmuring, "So it's either really gruesome or really interesting."

"Or it's something I need confidential and you invited someone who became a citizen of Camelot only hours ago to witness it alongside me," Arthur said, his words contradicting his light tone. His chainmail glinted in the light cast by the moon, and his red cape swept around his heels impressively.

"Lancelot can be trusted absolutely," Merlin protested, his shoes hardly making a sound on the cobblestones. Arthur's boots, in comparison, clicked with a certain dignity Lancelot envied. "I have trusted him with my life in the past, and so have you."

"I can leave if my presence is unwanted," Lancelot offered, glancing back to Camelot's white stones turned blue in the night. The citadel was beautiful, and he could hardly believe he had permission to live in it.

"Now look what you've done, you've offended him!" Merlin gasped, not slowing his pace or turning around. "Lancelot, you're coming with us. The river is just ahead."

A ways down the road, guards with torches were gathered around a bend in the river. They looked rather like fireflies from a distance, and the flickering lights flattered no one, including the guard that approached them.

"We heard some reports of a woman singing an old sorcerer's song," the guard explained, a shadow of his helmet preventing any of his features from being recognisable, "so we checked up on it. We think she must have been singing as she froze to death."

"Do you recognise her?" Merlin asked quietly, and Arthur shook his head. Lancelot glanced around them to see a woman robed in white with striking features that might have been familiar if he looked closer. Her eyes reflected the moonlight that cast a blue light on her dead-pale skin, and her lips were a purple colour. Upon her breast, dark frozen fingers clasped a rose of sunset orange.

 _"The Lady of Shalott,"_ Arthur read aloud, and his tone made it clear the name was foreign to him. Lancelot's eyes found the letters scrawled on the prow of the boat, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. He knew now where he had seen her before.

Lancelot did his best to avoid Merlin's shrewd gaze as he murmured, "God lend her mercy."

"God lend her mercy," Arthur agreed, and crossed himself. Merlin's eyes left Lancelot to follow the motion of his hand, and there was something like longing in his face that was quickly disguised.

Lancelot's first thought was of pity for Merlin, and his next was of his own guilt concerning the Lady. There was frost on the ends of her fair hair, and her pupils had swallowed the mysterious grey of her eyes. She looked strangely ethereal, floating in the black water, and Lancelot thought he might have understood what had happened.

He had been the only visitor to seek shelter in her tower, and she had enjoyed the company in her own enigmatic way. He had not so much as glanced in the direction of her tower upon his return, and she had left her isle by way of the river that flowed down to Camelot. Perhaps she had meant to die, or perhaps she had not known how cold nights were in winter; she wore a gauzy white dress and lay down in a boat to sing her song. God-fearing citizens of Camelot had heard a chant of _tirra lirra by the river_ and called the guards to investigate. The Lady's blood had frozen slowly as she sang, and she had floated into Camelot to die before the guards saw her.

Lancelot's chest ached with sadness and guilt. If he had forgotten exactly why he had felt he was unworthy of a knight's status, he remembered now and would not forget again.

"Arthur?" A woman asked from behind them, and all three turned. Guinevere was standing there, silhouetted by the torches behind her with just enough moonlight to see the blue concern on her face. Arthur put an arm around her and led her away from the body, saying something in a low voice. Lancelot turned away.

"You knew her," Merlin guessed, watching him. "Did you meet her on your travels?"

"The oath I swore to keep," he murmured with a small nod. He felt as though he might weep. "It was to her."

"I'm sorry," Merlin replied, eyes dropping to the body in front of them. Frost was beginning to collect on her eyelashes, and he could make out a frozen tear stain down the side of her face. "She was beautiful."

Lancelot's eyes followed the curve of her forehead, the line of her nose. He recalled the stained-glass in her tower and cursed whatever Seer had failed to warn her of her fate. With another stab of guilt, he saw that the rose was clasped in her dead hands with assistance from a piece of yellow fabric she had wound around them.

"She has a lovely face," he said quietly, and turned towards the city.


End file.
